A black British woman has been the subject of racist abuse while tweeting from the @Ireland Twitter account.

Michelle Marie, who is originally from Oxford and has lived in Ireland for three years, was shocked after receiving “eight hours of non-stop hate” within hours of taking over the account, which has 40,000 followers.

A few people are finding issue with me being black and running the Ireland account, so let me just address that for a minute...

She posted that she was "hurt" by the abuse in a statement posted on Twitter, but said she would do her best to complete her week running the account.

“I understood the @Ireland account to be a platform for all people who have an Irish connection or a grá [love] for the country/culture,” she wrote.

“I am no way claiming to be Irish or to reflect the native Irish in any way. I moved from England to Ireland three years ago. My other half is Irish. My daughter is an Irish citizen. It is my adopted home and I love living here.

“I applied to curate the account to share my experiences living here, my personal interests / experiences, and the body positivity work that I do. Many non-natives, non-residents, and persons of colour have gone before me on the account so I felt happy to apply.”

She added: “I expected trolls, and backlash, and criticism. But today I have experienced racism, sexism, fatphobia and homophobia to a degree I have never known. I have had 8hrs of nonstop hate thrown at me. I am hurt, shocked and appalled.

“Thank you to those who have welcomed me and shown me kindness and support. I want to see this week through for you. So tonight, for the sake of my wellbeing, I am signing off. But tomorrow I shall try again. Thank you for your patience and understanding.”

I had no idea that my mere presence and a few tweets would result in an epic race row *sigh*

The @Ireland Twitter account rotates each week with a new person introduced every Monday morning.

It is run by IrishCentral.com, an American news website for Irish news, and Twitter users can either apply to run it or be nominated.

“As the Ireland of today is not confined to the island of Ireland, the varied voices of @Ireland come from Ireland and across the world,” the Irish Central website explains.

“By sharing people's experiences and lives with the world, project custodians WorldIrish believe @Ireland can help to further connect Ireland to the world and the world to Ireland through the different voices that curate the account each week.”